Forget MotoGP wins, this is the best Marc Marquez performance you will see in 2025

Marc Marquez has delivered perhaps his best performance of 2025 so far, and he didn’t go anywhere near a MotoGP bike to do it.

The Spanish rider has delivered almost innumerable exceptional performances throughout his MotoGP career, from winning the title in his rookie year to taking 10 consecutive wins in 2014, and winning after a drought of 1,043 days at Aragon in 2024.

But the performance he’s put in for the latest Shell (Ducati’s long-time lubricants sponsor in both MotoGP and World Superbike) perhaps tops the lot.

It’s an acting masterclass that makes Matthew McConaughey’s Interstellar performance look mediocre; that makes Larry the Cable Guy’s Mater in Cars seem low-effort; and which evokes more emotion than Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby.

Quite simply, the way Marc Marquez delivers the line “It’s crazy good oil”, when a guy walks into presumably a garage asking for an oil change, is perfect, flawless, an absolute consummate display of performative genius. 

I mean, Francesco Bagnaia is right there alongside Marquez, and you don’t even notice him. Not that that makes this Marquez performance unique in 2025, of course.

It seems strange to say of a guy about to win his ninth motorcycle world title and 100th grand prix, but maybe he’s been wasting his time since taking up motorcycles as a kid. Perhaps, instead, Marquez’s father, Julia, should’ve put Marc on a plane to California in the late-1990s and left brother Alex’s racing career to be supported solely by the siblings’ mother, Roser.

It is an alternative timeline that many MotoGP fans, and probably some MotoGP riders, would doubtless wish that they had lived.

As it is, we can only hope for Marquez to be drafted into future roles that allow him to further demonstrate his acting prowess.